so ... I had watched the tapes as a small child because I was obsessed with martial arts as a whole... Bruce, Chan, Boxing, Wrestling, all of it.. those were like UFC 1-5... Idk what year it was though... maybe 1998? That said I wouldn't call myself a fan after being a kid until I bought my first PPV UFC 47 Chuck vs Tito 2004... Then I again didn't follow the sport until TUF... I watched every season of TUF, I also watched whatever free pride stuff used to always be on like TNT or Spike... but I never watched PPVs... all of this was until Anderson Silva vs Chris Leben... That fight literally turned me into an ultra fan... it started my journey to try and then stop trying to become a professional fighter(car accident) .
So anything from 1998 to 2006 would be accurate to the era I started watching MMA... the difference, in 1998 I was 10 and in 2006 I was 18...